Understanding what triggers dangerous heart rhythm disturbances

Joint Fulbright – BHF Scholar Award (First) “Identifying and treating novel substrates for life-threatening clinical ventricular fibrillation”

Cardiologist Dr Junaid Zaman at Imperial College London has received a BHF Travel Fellowship to spend one year working in a lab at Stanford University in California, USA. The Stanford researchers are experts in understanding and treating dangerous heart rhythm disturbances (arrhythmias), such as ventricular tachycardia (VT), or ventricular fibrillation (VF), which can cause sudden cardiac death. SCD survivors receive an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) which delivers an internal shock when the patient suffers VT or VF. But these patients can have recurrent and painful shocks from their ICD, significantly reducing their quality of life, and the ICD doesn’t treat the underlying cause. The Stanford researchers are VF experts, and have recently found that life threatening VF may result from electrical circuits, or rotors, that exist in the ventricles of the heart. Dr Zaman will work with the Stanford researchers to combine state-of-the-art mapping and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to locate rotors in patients who experience recurring dangerous heart rhythm disturbances to find out if they occur in areas where there are abnormalities in heart tissue. They will also work out if ablating (destroying) these areas can suppress episodes of VF. This research will improve our understanding of how these arrhythmias arise. It could reveal new ways to detect people at risk of SCD or prevent the first episode of arrhythmia, or improve the lives of people with SCD.